Meditation, anyone?

[Fluffysmom]

I'm still feeling kinda lousy, so I decided to take some natural medicine; breathing meditations.  I got out my book "The Blooming Lotus; guided meditation exersices for healing and transformation" by Thich Nhat Hanh.

For a breathing meditation, you just sit or lie comfortably, breath naturally, and let go of outside thoughts.  it can help to have a phrase to say to focus your attention and make you feel good.  Here are a few good choices that I'm going to go practice:

1. Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.       Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.

2. .Breathing in, my breath grows deep.        Breathing out, my breath goes more slowly

3.  Aware of my body, I breathe in                 Relaxing my  body, I breathe out

4.  Calming my body, I breathe in                  Caring for my body, I breathe out

5.  Smiling to my body, I breathe in.              Easing my body, I breathe out

6.  Smiling to my body, I breathe in.              Releasing the tensions in my body, I breathe out.

You can do each one five, ten, or fifteen times.  If your mind wanders, bring it back, calm.

I've found this can help with pain, stress, all sorts of stuff.

Peace and love,

Kathy

[doublevision1]

this is good advice.  I tried a version of this last week during my painful ON/migraine/??? episode.  I would just breathe and count, breathe and count, trying to focus on that rather than the pain.  I think it helped to keep me from completely freaking out.

It would be wise to do these exercises on a daily basis.  I believe in the power of mind over matter, although I'm not opposed to a good med if it works!

[Tahiri_Veila]

I used to do a meditation exercise regularly as a part of aikido.  It was done both passive where you are sitting and active during practice.  I must admit I miss it as there is no instructor within an hour of here so I can no longer take it and I was not advanced enough to instruct others so I no longer do this.  Thanks for reminding me about it.  I could at least do part of it on my own.
Tahiri

[Fluffysmom]

I started out with the simple "I am breathing in" (1) I am breathing out.  I'm glad it helped keep you from freaking out, db, that must have been awful.

I've also done walking meditation, and "red light meditation" (do the breathing while stopped at a red light), and so on.  I forgot to practice when so much was going wrong, right when I needed it the most.

Tahiri, years ago I practiced judo, and the kata was like a meditation, too.  It's been 12 years since I practiced judo, and I still miss it; still have my gi.  I'd have to watch a video to remind myself of the moves.  I have a tai chi video; I guess that would work, too.

Kathy

[Salamander2]

Meditation....it's a beautiful thing.
Sally

[ladygraycloud]

Thanks for this I knew someone knew some kinda relaxing tips this has to be my biggest problem is to relax but going to try this

Suzie

[Fluffysmom]

If you can find the book listed at the start of this post, it has a lot of suggestions on meditation, and phrases to use in different situations.

I didn't have any particular phrases last night, but I was meditating on the snow and ice; my roommate decided we needed to do some Christmas and grocery shopping before the freezing rain hit.  

She had lived in Alaska, and knew how to drive in the several inches of powdery snow; It was the windshield wipers icing up and reducing visibility that tensed me up.  We stopped several times on the way home to knock the ice off.  I did a lot of breathing while watching the beauty of the snow and Christmas lights we passed.

We did get a lot of shopping done, and made it safely home.  Now I'll have a quiet indoor day wrapping tons of presents (her three grandsons are coming up from CA).  We ended up with about 8 inches of snow with a fair amount of sleet on top.  It's 22 degrees out, with a windchill factor of 10.

I have Winter Solstice music playing softly, and will start gift wrapping soon, with a cup of herbal tea.  I love days like today!  

The street car is running, so if we need any more gifts, we can walk a block and ride to some warm shopping.  The forecast still suggests freezing rain, so maybe I'll just stay inside.

Wishing us all a mellow Sunday,

Kathy

[shoshin]

Just want to say that I think Thich Nhat Hanh is amazing. I had the chance to hear him talk once years ago and he was very inspiring (although very hard to hear due to an inadequate sound system).

He has a story about appreciating not having a toothache that has helped me. I think this is part of it:

"When we have a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing.  But when we do not have a toothache, we are still not happy. A non-toothache is very pleasant.  There are so many things that are enjoyable, but when we don’t practice mindfulness, we don’t appreciate them." (http://www.livinglifefully.com/thinkershanh.htm)

Another thing that has helped me is a question that another teacher gave for when things are difficult, "Can I be okay with this just right now, just this moment?" For me, if I start thinking, it's going to be like this forever or how am I going to stand this for the next X amount of time, that just makes the pain even bigger and causes more suffering.

I think having an (almost) daily meditation practice has helped me cope better with the MS than I otherwise would have.

One other thing people might want to check out is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, which is a secular, meditation-based program that is used a lot for people with chronic pain. This practice uses a kind of body awareness meditation and there has been quite a bit of research on this method (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&cmd=DetailsSearch&term=mindfulness+based+stress+reduction or http://tinyurl.com/83cltn). There are CDs available at http://www.mindfulnesstapes.com.

sho

[Fluffysmom]

Thank you so very much; I didn't have the words the other day, and you not only found the words to communicate some valuable information, you did it very well, with the simple, direct, easy-to-understand language of Thich Nhat Hanh.

I went and saw him at a Day of Mindfulness in a park in Oakland CA several years ago.  I was able to go up to the very front, sit quietly down, and he smiled right in my eyes, and you could feel the peace emanating from that small man.

It was a glorious day; there were some of the gang-type kids hanging around, and before long you could tell that they had gotten the message of mindfulness.  We finished up with a mindful walk.  There I was, the first time I had ever flown, and I was walking in peace with thousands of strangers.  Ahhhhh.....

I saved your post into a word document so I can check out the websites later; I'm supposed to be helping my roommate make dinner.

Thanks again

Kathy